Sloppy, listless, and why didn't they just go home?

One of the most lack luster shows I've seen. Going back through every show I saw, but decided for some reason to start reviewing on this one. Jerry seems off. Maybe he fell off the wagon - don't know. Certainly Iko is a great opener, and the cowboy songs were pretty decent. I also liked Let It Grow. But the band seems out of sync, with Jerry struggling with lyrics and playing.

Aiko Aiko...

Incredible feeling of empowerment through becoming one, energies melding, drawing from and contributing to our unified force.. particularly from the Deadheads, I thought at the time, but the notion was soon to be superceded...
... by seeing the world divided...us and them... those seeking higher understanding, and those running from it...

Walking Blues

During Walking Blues I think I saw Nirvana, for just a second or two. It was when I was surrendering to fully feeling "pain"... in fully surrendering, It full circled to it's opposite, and in the middle was the great Tao...The Void.... Nirvana... it was a feeling...

Stagger Lee....

Just action successfully achieved, attainable through the empowerment of what we share. The interface I was talking about in dp, the interface between all of us, unified, and what I called the ethereal cosmos was unfolding its characteristics to me all night long... manifestation after manifestation....

I got So High off Stagger Lee_... confidence and justice

Please understand, of course, the literal references of S.L. were interpreted metaphorically...

The Cowboy Songs...

Big River.... During the very beginning, I was remembering the vacation I just took after the Eugene show which found me sleeping (and awakening) on 5 different rivers, brought me to the Rain Forests of the Olympic Peninsula, The Clackamas Wilderness, Crater Lake....

I was in the front row, and so I took the opportunity to thank the band (especially Jerry, who I was looking at more than the rest at this particular time) for everything, as, what they have given to me made the trip immeasurably richer than I would have dreamed of. I got SSOO HHIIGGHH!! Surrendering myself to the wonderment and fulfillment I've been involved with since I stepped on the bus. I radiated this to the Band with Love and Gratitude. Jerry grinned and beamed a bit...

When they played Let it Grow... the energy and visions soared to higher heights...

Interesting vision during Push Comes to Shove... I *felt* all this love from my friends being the roses wrapping me with their sweet perfume.. It blossomed into the most incredible sensation of being loved... explosive love

I thought of "the force" I've been trying to talk around the last few days, and its constituency. As being the antithesis of all that is pro war, hate, greed, and dishonesty. I saw particularities that got me high. Warriors vs Warriors, with opposite objectives, yet still highly demanded upon and active. Wounding vs giving of higher wellness and healing. Giving of death vs giving of life.... separation vs unity.... Weapons vs tools which aid in attaining peace, love, understanding, compassion...

I saw the water of the earth as setting an example demonstrative of society approaching the fulfillment of its potential. We rise to the heavens, become purified, and return to provide life to the planet. We are nurturing, supportive, and necessary. We are all one. No separation. Constantly interacting. Providing in an immeasurable number of ways...

Along the same lines, I saw "us" as the crust of the earth. Living on the edge... I saw us as the edge of the universe... reaching outward to *see*, *feel* and experience the still undiscovered...

Terrapin hit me like never before. I cried. I saw us existing as the interface, and our awareness of it. This is Terrapin Station. The whole song came to life for me and brought me to euphoria inducing levels of perception stimulating joy and adulation beyond description!!!

So much of the night was me just *feeling* so much and getting very high off it all. It was hard to just talk to people, I was overwhelmed with sensation which was received in a part of me which is adept at eluding description.

Love Love Love was the theme of the night. And empowerment.

I realized that the hours I spent writing those last two long postings of mine wed. and thurs. were priming me and educating me for the high I got Friday night.

At work on Fri. I told my friends: There are *three* words that have had me ecstatic for a *month*, and the are Front Row Center!!

And it was better than I'd imagined it would be!!

I felt (and feel so much love for those guys, you, and all of us.

Whoever just said something about if love and compassion drop, so will the bombs (loose paraphrase... I saw something like that too...

.... actually, everything I just posted is a drop in the ocean I became last night..

....oooohhhhh I also got very heavy into some ufo energy, can't remember which song that was.. I've been thinking about ufo's heavily lately anyway... and space people... y'see I just saw Rainbow Bridge again last week... and it brought some old excitation and realizations back.

So, I spent last night in heaven... again!!!

(I wrote this right after the show...just stumbled on it and thought I would post it here)

Savor Grateful Dead music. It was all a gift. Out of the bazillion shows the Dead ever played, maybe there's not much here that is historically significant, maybe there is, but who's to say? Take whatever jboy says with a grain of salt, though.

I cued up the show to hear Black Peter. Jerry was one of the most underrated blues men who ever lived, and here's another example of just how underrated he was/is. Uniquely expressive, unpredictable phrasing-it's just the sort of thing I was looking for, and I, for one, am satisfied.

Wasn't Shoreline built on a former garbage dump? I used to live not too far from the place when it was a dump.

Jim

1st Set: A bit too mellow for my tastes "Iko" opens up a three night stand at the venue Bobby affectionately labeled a 'garbage dump' at a show here in '87. Someone better have given him the boot to the arse and some "Walkin Blues." for that rude gesture. Decent though the sound's more than a bit remote and thin."Stagger" lacks that all-important bounce. "Uncle"'s innocuous and fine whereas "River" features some of Jerry's first dabbles in fiddly MIDI effects. "Push" is disposable. "Let" is quite fine, but the lack of a voluptuous sound cuts down on its pleasantries.

2nd Set: Thank goodness for an easy to digest tune like "Bertha." Fine but not fabulous or particularly stirring. "Playin" is brisk but lacks much substance. "Terrapin" is meek and lacks strength and the will to pound its lesson into your skull. "Drums" is fine but unexciting, same for "Space." Have I mentioned that tonight is mellow to the point of ehhh... "The Wheel" like the former noise is quite soothing and pretty...so much so by the band's standards that they stretch out the noodling ti almost 5:30... then it's "Watchtower" time and let the fine howling begin. Nothing blistering, but at least they're going over '5' on the turntable. A minimal "Black Peter" til Jerry rips an distorted but pleasingly quirky outro which segues into a somewhat lifeless "Sugar Mag" and a standard "Sunshine."

"US Blues" is blandly a step up... but not enough to say 2 1/2 stars rounded down...cause of all the good shows from earlier in the month.